Biography
Dr. Graham is a licensed clinical social worker and psychologist, who has nearly 20 years of clinical experience working in private, non-nonprofit and governmental clinical settings, where he has provided direct and supervised psychotherapeutic interventions for adults and children from various cultural and racial backgrounds. He has received training in CBT, DBT, MI, CBT Trauma, and FFT. Much of his clinical work and training has primarily focused on adolescents and young adults with mental illness, who are served within the criminal/ juvenile justice system (e.g. state/county juvenile detention facilities, Maxey Training School, and other local and state correctional facilities) and health service delivery affiliated institutions (e.g. University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Services, St. Joe’s Hospital). He remains current a clinical child/adolescent therapist in the University of Michigan Addiction Treatment Services (UMATS) unity within Michigan Medicine Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, where he treats youths and their families with co-occurring disorders.
Dr. Graham’s past research projects have focused on juvenile delinquency and mental health, juvenile sexual offenders, Black male adolescent suicidality and depression, adolescent addiction, masculinity/male identity effects on criminal behavior, and the double marginal effects of substance abuse disorder on Black men in residential treatment. Most recently, his research has focused on “multiply marginalized” men in treatment and the longitudinal impact of choice, cognition, and context on their help-seeking and service use behavior. He is also interested in exploring and better understanding the relational effects of pathological identities on men of color’s concept of masculinity, perceptions of the lived world, decision-making and overall well-being. His aim through research is to develop culturally appropriate and appealing interventions that will lead to improved mental health service utilization, particularly among men of color with psychiatric disorders.
Dr. Graham has a Ph.D. in Social Work and Psychology as well as a Masters Degree in Clinical Social Work and Psychology, both from the University of Michigan. He received his bachelors degree with honors in Social Welfare and Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.
Featured News
U-M study finds most adolescents with severe substance use disorder symptoms do not transition out of it in adulthood
Charles Graham, Ph.D., LMSW, MA, is quoted in this Michigan Daily article.